GVRDC XC Schooling

This schooling was the definition of last minute. It ran from 10-2. Hubby and I spent the morning tidying up the last few things from our cancelled Utah trip (#sobbing), and I decided that if we managed to get that wrapped up by 10:15 I would go. It ended up being more like 10:30, but the appeal of doing something by myself got us out the door anyway. 

I threw a borrowed jump saddle in the trailer with water and a loaded hay bag, grabbed Opie out of the field, and off we went. 

Pretty much everyone was already back at the trailers getting ready to leave or heading off the course when we got there, but I was fine with that. Opie kept an eye on any horse he saw, but he never made a peep or got distracted from the jumping by them. 

He was pretty lit though, so I went ahead and sent him into a big hand gallop and let him do a couple of giant laps to get that out of his system. He was with it from there on out. I, on the other hand, was obviously very out of practice with the whole jumping package--I didn't trust that Opie was going to go over anything even as he was dragging me to fences, and just generally felt loosey goosey in the tack. Jumping more than once a month usually helps with that...

After jumping the Intro log for the first jump, we came around to the BN first fence which had a little line of mulch with some yellow flowers poked in front. I was sure Opie would take offense to them and stop, so of course the correct course of action there was to pull him to a stop in front of it instead of just letting him jump it. He stood there very confused for a second before obligingly giving the fill a quick snoot and jumping it with zero issue two times in a row. 

Moving on, we did the second Intro and then I was "brave" and jumped the BN bench as well even though I have a deep seated dislike of them. 

me: ohgodohgodohgod

opie: wheeeeeee!

We did the next two Intro jumps (a cabin and a log stack) and skipped the third BN jump which was a table-like thing covered in straw with a log on top. Opie probably would have jumped it because he was game for whatever, but I wasn't mentally ready for it. We did do the next two BN jumps though.

intro cabin

bn table

bn house

He did stop at the above house the first time--his only refusal of the entire day. The sun was blasting off its light grey top and I think it just took him a bit by surprise. He came right back around and jumped it twice without issue. 

We took a quick break to play in the water:

watching a horse disappear over the horizon but who cares because water

opie says this is why i'm here

We did a couple more BN fences:

he is the gamest horse with the cutest form.
i should really get on his level.

And then we moved on to the bank complex which was one of two things I wanted to work on--the other being ditches. He started off wiggly and uncertain about the tiny step down, but after one successful drop off, his confidence rocketed right up every time after until he was picking up the trot on his own as soon as I pointed him in that direction.

"ohgodohgodohgod"

"actually that wasn't so bad"

"bish i got this"

no drama

the actual most handsome

I decided to wrap that up with going up the Novice bank on the other side and cantering off the tiny drop we'd been doing. (I actually didn't even see the flagged BN up or I would have worked on dropping off that, too. Oh well.) It was hands down the most giant up bank Opie has ever seen in his life, but bless his Dopie heart he launched us up it no questions asked and went right off the other side.

Ditches were next. He could have cared less about the BN ditch and cantered over it without blinking multiple times.

That was such an unevent that I brought him around to the Novice ditch which was the same width but significantly deeper. He was like, "Yeah, yeah, it's just as ditch." until he went to jump it and saw the gaping chasm beneath him and launched it. But still went without question because A Very Good Boy.

"I AM CLEARING THE DEATH CAVE"

I was disgustingly overheated by this point and feeling a bit queasy from it. Fortunately we'd jumped the vast majority of the BN course by this point and were at the very end of it. We went through the hedgerow, did the last two jumps on the Intro course:

And then finished with jumping the last jump on the BN course twice (because the first time we got in too close and I wanted to finish on a good note).

So BN is definitely well within Dopie's wheelhouse even with both of us having way too much time off and me riding like a worried monkey the entire time. Not that that matters since I won't be paying the obscene fees related to USEA events around here when I want to have a full dressage show season. And that whole stadium thing being literally the worst on the planet.

As we were heading back to the trailer, a woman I know was the last to arrive and didn't have a partner or groundsperson so asked if I would go around the Intro course with her quick. I agreed, but on the condition I could grab a gatorade first. I snagged one of those, ditched my vest, and Opie and I trotted the short loop around with her, chugging cold liquid with one hand and neck reining on the buckle with the other. 

Did I mention he's A Very Good Boy?

Four Ring Horse

Opie really carried the weight of the adult ammy horse this past week. Listen, sir. I don't always ride so great, often I get distracted by shiny things, and sometimes I need you to carry all the weight. In return I will give you every cookies that exists and make sure your physical and mental wellbeing when I'm not in the saddle are the best I can make it.

well. i do the best i can with the mental side. i can't be held accountable for
his own choice to lick the fly spray off the bottle.

There were a whole bunch of factors going on both at the barn and at home that had me pretty much over everything in existence. All I wanted to do was ride my fucking horse in a peaceful and solitary way, and as much as I tried to plan around that, it wasn't to be. 

But we did end up doing all sorts of things, in all sorts of different tack.

roof construction next door made for great posing

Ring 1: Dressage

I ordered Dopie a fancy new double with lots of padding and a monocrown awhile ago because he still feels a little sore in the poll area, but alas it has yet to even leave PA yet. Fuckers. On Monday I just put him in the Micklem anyway because I was destroyed both mentally and physically after a weekend of being at an event with a bunch of barn kids. We did a short warm up, ran through BN A just for funsies, and had a quick stretch before I had to cut our ride off to hold BM's asshole horse for the farrier.

The next day we went back to the double and had a really good w/t ride in the outdoor. I wanted to work on him really pushing into the bridle and taking the contact instead of being wiffly waffly with it. He had one moment right when we started where he wanted to bounce off of it, but instead of just throwing the reins at him and being like, "sorrysorrysorry" I took more contact and booted him up. You're capable, do the work. And he did.

was really hoping the rear cinch would make him look legit. instead it just
made him look fat lol. but the saddle did seem much more stable!

Ring 2: Barrels

I had wanted to play with the barrel pattern on Wednesday, but as I was turning horses out a full on monsoon let loose. Aside from flooding the outdoor, it also flooded me and I went home and bought my troubles away with Dopie's first very own jump saddle (which will hopefully arrive sometime this year). 

I regrouped the next afternoon. Since it was his first time with the rear cinch on, I stuck him on the longe first to see if he would react to it at all. He could have cared less. I got on and started warming him up with some circles and bending. Right when I was ready to start working on the pattern itself, BM came in the ring and commandeered the path between the first two barrels while on a rant and would not get out of my way. 

I was trying very hard not to get pissed, but I was pretty fucking annoyed that I ended up on my horse for nearly an hour and got to run the pattern two whole times. 

Ring 3: Show Jumping

I saw that there was a cross country schooling at the show grounds where the event was held last weekend and vaguely thought about doing it over the weekend. I figured if it was even going to be on the table I ought to at least throw some jump tack on for the first time in a month and see if my horse was feral and if I could find my way over a fence without being a complete mess.

Once again, despite my best attempts, I got waylaid by BM but finally managed to scurry out back to jump around in the field. I had set everything at 2'3-2'6 and fortunately that still remains our happy spot. Nothing looked big despite the time off which usually leads me to mental anguish. 

I did my typical not enough pace to most of them, but fortunately everything still came up pretty easily. Good Boy Dopie went no matter where I put him, had his head firmly attached, and we put several courses together with zero trouble.

Ring 4: Cross Country

I didn't commit to go xc schooling until about 10:30 the day of. It ended up working out well because even though it was blazing hot by the time we got there, everyone was finishing up and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. 

That will be its own post though, but the long and short is that Dopie packed my ass around like a better boy than I probably deserve and got rewarded with being parked in front of his fan with half a bag of carrots and couple of apples thrown into his pile of hay when we got home. 

I'm so grateful for this horse sometimes. I mean, I had to quit our ride on Friday early because my back still gives me trouble sometimes from him fucking it up with his rabid changes, but most of the time 11/10 would recommend a Dopie Horse. 

3-1 Run-through

I've kept to my promise to myself and haven't gone back to the snaffle yet. It's been the double or a halter...although admittedly the halter got more use than the double last week (Only four more trail hours until we hit 100 tho!). 

Knowing it's going to get balls hot out the first couple days of this upcoming week, I wanted to log a couple of structured dressage rides in over the weekend. Yesterday was good. We didn't do anything too exciting, but I kept him coming forward in all the lateral work, he was steady in the connection, and I spent about five seconds playing with some half-assed, half complete changes before quitting there. Turns out I'm pretty gun shy about them now after how badly he fucked up my back the other week. I definitely want BM to get on for a ride and see what she can do with them, and I'll just have to live with her then expounding about how she put changes on my horse and fixed everything that was wrong with him for the rest of his life. 

Or maybe I don't want that, I dunno. Fucked up back and do it myself, or.... We'll see.

This morning I had Hubby come out because I was overdue for some video to check on progress. Thanks, Pivo, for not doing this for me, you useless fucker. 

It's always discouraging to see the things you think are going well looking a bit like shit, but on the flip side, the things I thought were absolute fucking trash didn't look so bad. EVEN IF THEY FELT LIKE IT.

So. A few things of note:

• If I want to warm him up on a long rein, fine, but he better be stretching into that long rein. Otherwise it's just me with floppy long reins, broken wrists, and my elbows behind my fat roll.
• But really. Why are my elbows always so far back?
• Probably because my reins are always too long.
• Probably because my horse is back to being inconsistent in the contact.

• We still have a medium trot. Will we ever get an extended trot?
• He can do lateral work while going forward. SO MAKE HIM.

Things were going pretty well--he was popping around on the contact a bit, but worked out of it--so I decided to finally run through 3-1 for the very first time ever.

Minus the flying changes. Because. 

Turns out this is a really easy test. If you have a change and a ballin' medium trot you can pass off as an extended trot (not us), you can sneak up to Third without much trouble. 

The turns on the haunches still sometimes want to sneak in as pivots, but sometimes not. We'll get the planted foot eradicated eventually. The half passes need some smoothing, but we don't work on those a ton--time to do that! 

And then the "extended" trot that turned into a giant tantrum at X. He was so sucked behind my leg the whole test, even though it doesn't look like it, that when I finally dug my spur into him to finish like a grown up, he was like, "FUCK FUCKING YOU." 

But it also comes back to the contact issues. Steady contact has always been Opie's number one bugaboo. The head wagging even on the buckle was a huge thing when I first restarted him. Also the tongue flopping out of his mouth like an angry fish (Still here--yay!). The bouncing on and off it. The whole shebang. He's been so good about it lately, that with it cropping up again now I wanted to write it off as a new problem. 

But I think we've just circled back around to: the work is getting harder again, he's learning new things, he's in a new bridle that I'm now asking him to carry all the time, and he's expected to step up to the plate for all these things.

Opie's life is hard, man.

While I got off a little frustrated with the finish, I still think we're on the right track. We just need to keep crawling along. I need to push my elbows forward and shorten my reins. Opie needs to get better about accepting the contact. 

And also maybe keep being abused by the changes. UGHHHH.

I am glad we ended up with an entire year to work through this stuff. I'm not so sure the winter alone would have been enough time to produce this horse to Third by next show season.

Double Up

In the past three rides, we've had some good, some bad, and some downright fucking ugly. Also my desire to chuck the Pivo across a vast distance into something hard has not diminished whatsoever. Why it thinks the walls both inside and outside the barn are its target, I do not know. But it makes me very angry.

The bad and the ugly both stem from the double bridle, of which I have made a new and more dedicated commitment to. I have somehow fallen into this three rides in a row pattern with the double that goes like this:

Ride One: Re-getting used to the contact.

Ride Two: More honest in the contact, remedial work through Second and Third movements.

Ride Three: Full work, no problems with contact.

And then I put it away for two to three weeks to repeat the cycle again. 

This, unsurprisingly, might not be the best way to go about things, especially when I try to break the three ride, three step program by trying to get Ride Three results in Ride One like I did on Thursday. 

Thursday was one of those mornings which kicked off an entire day. I ended up not putting a single bite of food in my mouth until dinner because I woke up frazzled and then spiraled into mental meltdown mode from there. I got on with thoughts of running through 3-1 in its entirety for the first time which was a pretty stupid choice since I hadn't used the double in forever. (He's been great in the snaffle though.)

Right off the bat he was bouncing around on the contact and tight in his body. Just like he is every time in Ride One. I tried to hastily push through and persevere, and then I got even stupider and was like, "Let's just hit these changes quick before doing this test!" And that's where shit went off the damn rails.

We actually ended up going back to the L-R being better and fairly reliable if also flying through the fucking air and bolting afterwards, but the R-L he would change...and then change back and forth ten fucking times in the space of three feet. It fucked my back up royally--I could hear my spine cracking and crunching multiple times as he launched through the air like a rabid pogo stick.

every time he saw a hoofprint, he'd drop his head
to the ground to follow it like a hound dog. it made
for a nice stretchy workout lol

He got two days off after that which was much needed for my poor back. We ended up not going to the hunter pace because of sketchy weather which was A-OK with me. Instead, on Sunday, I put the double back on and did our Ride One work--lots of trotting and cantering without asking for anything but reaching for the bits and being quiet and relaxed. We finished up by working on the simple changes.

We'll go back to the double tomorrow and for all our dressage rides here on out until he's totally solid in it--and that includes being confirmed in the changes. I feel almost guilty riding in it--like I have to prove to myself that he can still do all these things in the snaffle. And I do have to get that last score at Second which will require the snaffle so I feel like I have to keep riding in it. But he needs to be just as comfortable in the double. The double also helps refine all my asks, so really there shouldn't be any harm in training/finessing all the Second stuff as well in it. 

That said, we ditched bridles all together this morning and did a stroll around the park in his halter and western saddle.

He was completely relaxed the whole time. Got some splashies in, had a couple good gallops, and did lots of stretchy walk up and down terrain. 

Tomorrow back to dressage in the double, Wednesday back to trail riding.